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Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg, based upon the novel of the same name written by Michael Crichton. The story involves scientists visiting an amusement park of genetically engineered dinosaurs on an island over one weekend. Sabotage sets the carnivorous dinosaurs on the loose, and technicians and visitors attempt to escape the island. The film stars Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough. The film began its genesis before the novel was even published, and Crichton was hired to write a script that skimmed down its plot. Spielberg hired Stan Winston Studios' puppets and worked with Industrial Light and Magic to develop cutting edge CGI to portray the dinosaurs. It was well received by critics, although they critizised the plotting and characterisation. Since its release it has grossed $914,691,118, becoming the highest grossing film of all time, and is currently the eighth-highest grossing feature film. Most significantly, the film inspired a new breed of films that primarily used CGI for special effects. The film was followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997 and by Jurassic Park III in 2001, neither of which was as financially successful or as critically acclaimed as the first. A fourth film is in development. Plot Improve grammar, but don't extend it, plot is already complex An InGen employee is killed while releasing a Velociraptor into a penhold, prompting a $20 million lawsuit from his family. CEO John Hammond invites Drs. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, as well as chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm and his investors' attorney Donald Gennaro to visit Isla Nublar. He must do this to make sure the park is considered safe by experts before being opened to the public. There they witness living dinosaurs, and learn in a film and tour of InGen labs that they recreated the dinosaurs by cloning genetic material found in mosquitoes, preserved in Dominican amber, that had fed on dinosaur blood. The DNA from these samples is spliced with DNA from frogs to fill in any gaps, and, to keep control, all of the dinosaurs are female. The team also witnesses the birth of a Velociraptor, and learns of the intelligent adults at their pen during feeding time. The scientists are concerned, but Grant remains neutral. They meet Hammond's grandchildren, Lex and Tim, and go on a vehicular tour of the park. Ellie leaves to take care of a sick Triceratops, while the rest continue the tour. However, a storm soon hits the island and most InGen employees leave, bar Hammond, game warden Robert Muldoon, engineer Ray Arnold, and lead computer programmer Dennis Nedry, who—commissioned by rival company Biosyn—takes the opportunity to steal dinosaur embryos and shuts down the electricity so he can drive directly through the park and deliver them to an auxiliary dock. Thus, a Tyrannosaurus gets past its electric fence and attacks the cars. Gennaro is eaten trying to hide in an unfinished restroom, Malcolm is attacked and wounded trying to protect the kids. Grant and Lex escape by climbing down the side of the concrete moat, though Tim is trapped within a car high up in a tree. Meanwhile, Ellie and Muldoon rescue Malcolm and are nearly eaten by the T. rex during an intense chase. Nedry crashes his car and after trying to fix it is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Grant calms Lex down by convincing her he's not going to leave them and goes to find Tim. He finds the car and rescues him, but soon after he rescues Tim from the car they narrowly escape as the car falls after them. Grant, Tim, and Lex sleep in another tree and feed a Brachiosaurus the next morning. They discover some of the dinosaurs are breeding as a result of the frog DNA which enables them to change sex, and witness the T. rex attacking a flock of Gallimimus. rex'' in the film's ending sequence]] Arnold tries to hack Nedry’s computer to turn the power back on, fails, and leaves to turn it back on manually. He doesn't return after about 15 minutes, and Ellie and Muldoon go to turn the power back on and discover the raptors have escaped. Muldon tells Ellie to go the Utility shed herself and turn the power back on while he hunts Raptors that have been stalking them. Tim is climbing an electric fence at the moment when Ellie manages to turn the power back on, but luckily he survives. Muldoon is attacked and killed by a lurking raptor whilst Ellie escapes from one after discovering Arnold's remains and meets up with Grant. They both go back to Malcolm and Hammond, and Grant takes a shotgun after learning that the raptors have escaped their pen. Lex and Tim narrowly escape two of the raptors in the kitchen and, using her computer skills, Lex reboots the mainframe in order to call Hammond to get a helicopter while Grant and Ellie hold off a raptor trying to open the door to the computer room. After a battle on top of the fossil exhibits where the raptors block their escape routes, the Tyrannosaurus comes and easily kills the two raptors. Grant tells Hammond that he will not endorse Hammond's park, a choice with which Hammond concurs. They escape along with Ellie, Tim, Lex and Malcolm. Flying away in the helicopter, the children fall asleep beside Grant, who contemplatively watches the birds flying nearby — surviving relatives of the dinosaurs they escaped. Cast *'Sam Neill' as Dr. Alan Grant: A paleontologist excavating Velociraptor fossils in the Montana Badlands. He dislikes children, frightening one with a talon of a raptor, but he soon has to protect Hammond's grandchildren. Neill only had a weekend's break between filming Family Pictures and Jurassic Park, and had prepared for the role by meeting Jack Horner. *'Laura Dern' as Dr. Ellie Sattler: A paleobotanist and Grant's girlfriend. Dern also met Horner and visited the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, learning to prepare a fossil. *'Jeff Goldblum' as Dr. Ian Malcolm: A mathematician and chaos theorist. He forewarns the danger of resurrecting dinosaurs and becomes Hammond's main opposition. He also falls for Sattler, another in a long line of romantic interests. Goldblum was Spielberg's first choice and is a big fan of dinosaurs. To prepare for his role, Goldblum researched Chaos Theory, which included arranging a meeting with James Gleick and Ivar Ekeland to discuss the theory. Coincidentally to their romantic tension in the film, Goldblum began a real life romance with Dern. *'Richard Attenborough' as John Hammond: CEO of InGen and architect of Jurassic Park. Attenborough had not acted in a film since 1979 in film The Human Factor. *'Ariana Richards' as Alexis "Lex" Murphy: Hammond's granddaughter, a vegetarian and self-professed computer hacker. *'Joseph Mazzello' as Timothy "Tim" Murphy: Lex's younger brother, into dinosaurs. He has read Grant's numerous books. *'Wayne Knight' as Dennis Nedry: The disgruntled architect of Jurassic Park's computer systems. He is bribed by Biosyn agent Lewis Dodgson for $1.5 million to deliver frozen dinosaur embryos. *'Samuel L. Jackson' as Ray Arnold: The park's chief engineer. He switches off the main power to reboot the mainframe — but unwittingly unleashes the raptors in doing so. *'Bob Peck' as Robert Muldoon: The park's game warden. He is concerned by the intelligence of the raptors, and would have them all destroyed. *'Martin Ferrero' as Donald Gennaro: A lawyer who represents Hammond's concerned investors. *'B.D. Wong' as Dr. Henry Wu: The park's chief geneticist. He made all the dinosaurs female and lysine deficient. He leaves during the storm. *'Gerald R. Molen' as Gerry Harding: The park's veterinarian. *'Cameron Thor' as Lewis Dodgson. *'Dean Cundey' as the Dockworker who Nedry talks to on the computer. *'Christopher John Fields' as Billy: One of Dr. Grant's assistant at the dig site. *'Richard Kiley' as himself, as the voice of the car tour guide. Dinosaurs on screen Despite the title of the film most of the dinosaurs featured did not exist until the Cretaceous period. *''Tyrannosaurus, dubbed "T-Rex" informally in the film, is the star of the film according to Spielberg, being the reason he rewrote the ending for fear of dissapointing the audience. Winston's rex animatronic stood 20 feet, weighed 13,000 pounds.Shay, Duncan, p.105 and was 40 feet long. Jack Horner called it "the closest I've ever been to a live dinosaur". Despite his comment, the head is more boxy and there is no scientific evidence for having a vision based on movement. The rex's roar is a baby elephant mixed with a tiger and an alligator and its breath is a whale's blowhole.Shay, Duncan, p.144 A dog attacking a ball was used for the sounds of it tearing a Gallimimus apart. *Velociraptor, dubbed raptors in the film, also has a major role, although those depicted are not based on the actual species in question, which is significantly smaller. It was instead based on its larger relative, ''Deinonychus, which was at the time called Velociraptor antirrhopus.Paul, G.S. 1988. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York: Simon and Schuster. 464 pp. Spielberg also changed it for dramatic reasons, and when Utahraptor was discovered before the film's release, Stan Winston jokingly said "We made it, then they discovered it". For the scene with Bob Peck, the raptors are played by men in suits. Dolphin screams, walrus bellowing, geese hissing, an African crane's mating call and human rasps are within the raptor sound mix. *''Dilophosaurus'' was also very different from its real life counterpart, made significantly smaller to make sure audiences did not confuse it with the raptors,and also that it would not overshadow the film's star, Tyrannosaurus.Shay, Duncan, p.36 It has a frill and spits venom, aspects of which are fictional. Its vocal sounds were made by combining a swan and a rattlesnake together. *''Brachiosaurus'' is inaccurately depicted as chewing its food. Despite scientific evidence of them having limited vocal capabilities, sound designer Gary Rydstrom decided to represent them with whale songs and donkey calls to give them a melodic sense of wonder. *''Triceratops'' has an extended cameo. Its appearance was a particular logistical nightmare for Stan Winston when Spielberg requested to shoot the animatronic of the sick creature earlier than expected.Shay, Duncan, p.83 Winston also created a baby Triceratops for Ariana Richards to ride, which was cut from the film for pacing reasons.Shay, Duncan, p.64 *''Gallimimus'' and Parasaurolophus' roles are mainly cameos, the latter appearing in the first encounter with the Brachiosaurus. Gallimimus appears in the scene where Dr. Grant, Lex and Tim are wandering across the open field. A herd/flock of Gallimimus come running in, with the Tyrannosaurus following. Changes from the book The film opens with a Velociraptor attacking an InGen worker: the aftermath of a similiar scene begins Crichton's novel. Other incidents excised from the film include a number of attacks on people by Procompsognathuses, one of which is sent to a University in New York. Spielberg felt the subplot was too horrific. The film also axed most of the middle of the book, in which the T-rex follows Grant and the children after killing a herd of hadrosaurids, chasing them up a river. It briefly leaves as Grant and the children enter an aviary of pterosaurs, and then it attacks once more before being disabled and left to drown by Muldoon. The most significant changes are in the characters. In the novel, Hammond is a ruthless businessman who invites his grandchildren to the island to use them as political leverage with the inspection of the island, whereas in the film Hammond is a kindly old man. Spielberg admitted he identified with Hammond's obsession with showmanship.McBride, p.421-422 Grant loves children in the novel but in the film he dislikes children. Spielberg's film also invents a mild love triangle between Grant and Dr Sattler, a couple, and Ian Malcolm. Crichton's version did mention romantic interest between Grant and Sattler. Spielberg also switched the characters of Tim and Lex; in the book, Tim is aged 11 and into computers, and Lex is only seven or eight and into sports. Spielberg did this as he wanted to work with Joseph Mazello, and it also allowed him to introduce the subplot of Lex's adolescent crush on Grant.Shay, Duncan, p.73 The most significant deaths of Hammond and Malcolm in the novel do not occur in the film. Crichton retconned Malcolm's death in the book sequel The Lost World to being near one. In contrast, Muldoon survived the novel, and Henry Wu, who does not leave the island in the book, is also killed by the raptors. External links * Official site * Jurassic Park at Box Office Mojo * Jurassic Park at SpielbergFilms.com * A list of major and minor gaffes, goofs, and bloopers * Jurassic Park Legacy — Jurassic Park Encyclopedia Category:Movies